Maharashtra curtails New Year’s Eve liquor parties along highways

Highlights

Clubs and banquets within 500 metres from the highways will not be allowed to serve liquor during the New Year's Eve party.

The move follows a recent SC order.

The decision will affect over 13,000 bars and liquor shops across the state along national and state highways.

Representative image.

MUMBAI: Around 60 to 70 hotels, banquet and housing society halls, clubs and lawns within 500 metres from the highways in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region won’t be allowed to host New Year’s Eve parties with liquor. Hotels can host such parties inside their permit rooms on December 31, but they won’t be allowed to serve liquor even there from April 1 as their permit room licences will stand cancelled. The move follows a recent Supreme Court order asking the Centre and the state governments to withdraw licences of all bars and liquor shops situated within 500m of highways at the earliest to prevent fatal mishaps. Maharashtra will start withdrawing such licences from April 1. Excise department officials said toeing the SC line, they are not approving the 60-70 applications for temporary licences for New Year’s Eve parties along the highways of Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai. Several star hotels like those clustered around the airport on the Western Express Highway are expected to be affected . Eventually, the decision will affect over 13,000 bars and liquor shops across the state along national and state highways. In Mumbai, most of these commercial and non-commercial venues are along the Western and Eastern Express Highways, Sion-Panvel Highway and the Old Agra Highway or L B S Road. In suburban Mumbai, around 250 hotels, bars and shops will lose their licences. Reacting to the state move, Kamlesh Barot, former president of the Federation of Hotels and Restaurants Associations of India, an apex body of all hotel and restaurant associations in the country, said, “Our customers are not strangers and they book parties in advance. We also offer them drivers and cars and work in cooperation with traffic police. We hope such hotels are spared.” Adarsh Shetty, president of Ahar, another body with 8,000 bars, hotels and restaurant under its wings, said the decision to not allow one-day parties along highways might have been taken out of fear that such a move could amount to contempt of court. The state has shortlisted around 13,000 hotels, bars and shops across the state along highways. Around 2,500 of these 13,000 liquor-serving establishments are in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Nearly 70% of the excise revenue, roughly about Rs 6000 cr a year, from such outlets across the state will not come to the state treasury following cancellation of their permits from April 1. Yearly permits of most of these establishments expire on March 31. “Online applications received from around 70 such installations for a premises permission, which is necessary for a one-day party licence, are thus being rejected by the excise department,” said excise sources. Data compiled by the state transport department shows that 13,212 people died in road accidents on highways in the state in 2016. “Thus, we are going to shut all bars and permit rooms located within 500 metres from highways or service roads, even though the government will have to lose the revenue,” said Sudhir Mungantiwar, the finance minister. For every liquor party on New Year’s Eve, the online process for permissions makes it mandatory for organizers to comply with certain conditions in advance. Even those who had got such permissions earlier have to resubmit the records online. Earlier such permissions were offline.

No foreign liquor allowed Imported liquor from other states or a duty-free liquor bottles bought at airports will not be allowed at any New Year’s Eve parties across the state. The host should buy liquor from authorized shops and keep bills or transport passes handy to produce them at the venue in case of excise inspection.